This post on screens is a follow-up to the post on shutters. They are related in that as screens become popular, the use of shutters declined.

So, when might the family have added screens? My usual first stops are Victorian Interior Decoration, Winkler and Moss, for general history, and then the pattern books, mill work catalogs, and the Sears Roebuck and Montgomery Ward catalogs. The pattern books may be promoting a new idea; when something is in the catalogs, it's an accepted part of the culture.

I know from my own work (as an architect) that sun porches sprout on houses in great numbers in New England around 1900 - glassed-in new and existing porches, with screens stored close by for summer use. Screen porches are standard features by the 1920's. But they don't appear in the pattern books. Was the public ahead of the designers?
I think technology is a deciding factor. When could we manufacture screening? The research I have found says the English made 'wire gauze' as early as the 1830's. American companies who made screening for sieves, made screens too by the late 1850's.

However, the Justin Smith Morril Homestead in Strafford Village, Vermont (built in the early 185o's, enlarged in 1859) has screens which may be original. The early screens were painted because the iron mesh would rust, and may have been used for privacy, rather than to keep out flying things. 'Wire cloth' needed to be finely woven to keep out mosquitoes, then it needed to be inexpensive. That seems to have happened in 1876 when a patent was issued for a power loom to weave screening - to Mr. Wickwire of Cortlandt, NY. (What a great name!) The quantity of screening produced in the US increased more than10 fold in the next 20 years.
The Park-McCullough House has screen panels in various states of repair in the basement. (The family saved everything.) Maybe they can be dated.
A great resource here was '100 Years of American Commerce, 1795-1895, edited by Chauncey M. Depew which I found reprinted on-line by Google Booksearch.
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